Nathan Fitch’s Top Drawer photos

AS220’s main gallery in Providence is presenting “Double Vision.” Nathan Fitch photographed folks from Top Drawer Art Center in East Providence, which offers art programs for adults with developmental disabilities. The portraits, both tender and featuring some of the playful spontaneity of the Top Drawer gang, are paired with duplicates that the artists amended. Some sort of colorized the photos. Others urgently scribbled atop them, leaving just a window of untouched space around their heads. One man completely buried his portrait under a black sludge. One woman attached beads to a photo of herself holding a beaded necklace. The results are mixed, many sort of spinning out unresolved. But artists, by training or peer influence, often arrive at the usual predictable answers to similar aesthetic problems. A chief pleasure of Top Drawer art is how often the results are unexpected.

Nathan Fitch and the artists of Top Drawer Art Center, “Double Vision,” AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence, Sept. 4 to 26, 2009.

Pictured from top to bottom: Emmet Estrada, Emmet Estrada, Anthony Pontarelli with his painting, Virginia Tavares, Lindsey Ponte, Anthoney Brum holding his drawings over his eyes, Katrina Cathcart, and Anthony Pontarelli.